1. Field of the Invention
Exemplary aspects of the present invention relate to a toner conveyor, a process cartridge, and an image forming apparatus, and more particularly, to a toner conveyor for conveying toner, a process cartridge incorporating the toner conveyor, and an image forming apparatus incorporating the process cartridge.
2. Description of the Related Art
Related-art image forming apparatuses, such as copiers, facsimile machines, printers, or multifunction printers having at least one of copying, printing, scanning, and facsimile functions, typically form an image on a recording medium according to image data. Thus, for example, a charger uniformly charges a surface of a photoconductor; an optical writer emits a light beam onto the charged surface of the photoconductor to form an electrostatic latent image on the photoconductor according to the image data; a development device supplies toner to the electrostatic latent image formed on the photoconductor to render the electrostatic latent image visible as a toner image; the toner image is directly transferred from the photoconductor onto a recording medium or is indirectly transferred from the photoconductor onto a recording medium via an intermediate transfer belt; finally, a fixing device applies heat and pressure to the recording medium bearing the toner image to fix the toner image on the recording medium, thus forming the image on the recording medium.
After the toner image is transferred from the photoconductor, residual toner (hereinafter referred to as waste toner) not transferred onto the intermediate transfer belt or the recording medium may remain on the photoconductor. To address this circumstance, a cleaning blade scrapes the waste toner off the photoconductor onto a toner conveyor that conveys the waste toner to a waste toner container. For example, the toner conveyor includes a polygonal conveyance member that receives the waste toner from the cleaning blade and conveys the waste toner to the waste toner container and a scraper blade that contacts the outer circumferential surface of the conveyance member and scrapes the waste toner off the conveyance member. As the conveyance member rotates in a predetermined direction of rotation, it conveys the waste toner received from the cleaning blade into the waste toner container. Simultaneously, the scraper blade slides over the outer circumferential surface of the rotating conveyance member, thus scraping the waste toner off the conveyance member.
Typically, the scraper blade is made of an elastic polyester film that is elastically deformed or bent to maintain contact with the outer circumferential surface of the polygonal conveyance member at a constant, predetermined pressure. However, since the elastic polyester film is subject to creep strain after the scraper blade is stored at high temperatures indefinitely, it may contact the conveyance member with decreased pressure, thereby degrading its scraping performance.
To address this problem, the scraper blade may be made of metal, which is more resistant to creep strain than elastic polyester film. However, the metal scraper blade, as it is bent to press against the outer circumferential surface of the conveyance member, may contact the conveyance member with increased pressure therebetween, thus increasing torque of a driver that drives and rotates the conveyance member and generating noise as the scraper blade slides over the conveyance member. Moreover, the rigid, metal scraper blade may shave the conveyance member as it slides over the conveyance member, shortening the life of the conveyance member.